baseball bat or crude spear

[guilletux]

so, in every round something bad can always happen, so its no bad idea to be well prepared for cathastropy, one of this preparation is a weapon for self defence, now the two most common options are baseball bat and crude spear one makes piercing dmg and the other makes blunt damage, wich one is better?

[deltanedas]

spear is good for guerilla warfare since bleed is damage over time + you can butcher things with it
bat is generally easier to make and sometimes even mass produced for the crew so you can expect to usually have one

[Del]

Bats are a bit easier to find the materials for.

The spear causes 12 damage, or 16 when wielded. The bat causes 10, or 18 when wielded. So from that angle the spear is better singled handed, and the bat is better two handed. Of course, the spear can cause bleeding over time, but I don't know how much that might add up.

As you might know, melee can be swung for more damage, by holding the right mouse button. A bar will appear, with a moving indicator. When you press the left mouse button to attack, the closest the indicator is to the middle of the bar, the higher the damage (up to twice as normal damage).

Anyway. The bat actually swings wide, making it easier to hit your targets (and friends), possibly more than one. The spear is the only weapon I know that "swings" in one straight direction. So if you want to distribute pain indiscriminately, use the bat. For precision (perhaps coordinating with other players), use the spear.

I was going to say that a spear would probably pair nicely with a shield, but now I don't think so. Makeshift shields and bucklers cost a lot to make, they don't protect much really, and they break easily. Sec's riot shields take 40 damage to break, bucklers take 30, and makeshift shields take 20. They cut like, 10% damage, or maybe 30% damage when raised, but raising shields locks you in place. So unless you find a riot shield lying around, nah. Even then, it's a maybe.

The spear can be thrown for 15 damage. But well, actually, as I did the test (in a server that's a few weeks out of date, but that probably doesn't matter), when you throw it, it actually hits the target two or three times on its way. This may or may not be a bug. That's a lot of damage in one throw. And you might even hit more than one target. Of course, you then don't have the spear anymore, unless you recover it, and it might end up being used against you. It also takes damage when thrown, and might break. It seems to take four throws to break a spear.

You can imbue a spear with chemicals. It can hold up to 5u, and it injects 1u per hit. But it does not inject chemicals when thrown. So you can cause significant extra toxin damage or something like that. I tested with unstable mutagen, and it caused 6 toxin damage in one hit, but not even 20 damage with five hits. So something about the metabolism makes it a bit less effective per hit with more hits, but still it's pretty cool.

I think both weapons have the same cooldown time.

[Del]

Oh, and of course, all of this may change any time. It's been less than a month since spears and bats were tweaked.

[Del]

One more thing you could take into consideration, if you know who your target is. Against slimes, you should definitely pick the spear over the bat (they take 60% blunt damage, but 120% piercing damage). Dionas also resist blunt damage, taking only 70%. They take full piercing damage, but a lit welder will be almost as good as a wielded spear against them (they take 150% heat damage).

But I don't know, I guess you generally don't know what kind of threat you might be facing, and it seems to me that most people play as humans/lizards/dwarves anyway.

ALSOOOOOO (how did I forget this?)

Crafting weapons at roundstart just because "you know bad things will happen" is powergaming and bad roleplay. You, the player, know shit's gonna happen. But your character shouldn't know that!

[veritius]

i don't carry a weapon and instead grab whatever's nearby

[deltanedas]

bash spider in with oxygen tank, like a boss

[PlushFox328]

On 4/16/2023 at 1:16 PM, Del said:

Bats are a bit easier to find the materials for.

The spear causes 12 damage, or 16 when wielded. The bat causes 10, or 18 when wielded. So from that angle the spear is better singled handed, and the bat is better two handed. Of course, the spear can cause bleeding over time, but I don't know how much that might add up.

As you might know, melee can be swung for more damage, by holding the right mouse button. A bar will appear, with a moving indicator. When you press the left mouse button to attack, the closest the indicator is to the middle of the bar, the higher the damage (up to twice as normal damage).

Anyway. The bat actually swings wide, making it easier to hit your targets (and friends), possibly more than one. The spear is the only weapon I know that "swings" in one straight direction. So if you want to distribute pain indiscriminately, use the bat. For precision (perhaps coordinating with other players), use the spear.

I was going to say that a spear would probably pair nicely with a shield, but now I don't think so. Makeshift shields and bucklers cost a lot to make, they don't protect much really, and they break easily. Sec's riot shields take 40 damage to break, bucklers take 30, and makeshift shields take 20. They cut like, 10% damage, or maybe 30% damage when raised, but raising shields locks you in place. So unless you find a riot shield lying around, nah. Even then, it's a maybe.

The spear can be thrown for 15 damage. But well, actually, as I did the test (in a server that's a few weeks out of date, but that probably doesn't matter), when you throw it, it actually hits the target two or three times on its way. This may or may not be a bug. That's a lot of damage in one throw. And you might even hit more than one target. Of course, you then don't have the spear anymore, unless you recover it, and it might end up being used against you. It also takes damage when thrown, and might break. It seems to take four throws to break a spear.

You can imbue a spear with chemicals. It can hold up to 5u, and it injects 1u per hit. But it does not inject chemicals when thrown. So you can cause significant extra toxin damage or something like that. I tested with unstable mutagen, and it caused 6 toxin damage in one hit, but not even 20 damage with five hits. So something about the metabolism makes it a bit less effective per hit with more hits, but still it's pretty cool.

I think both weapons have the same cooldown time.

Looks like I learned some things from this reply. Do you know if you can still throw spears to damage players? Thanks.

[Del]

I think so! The thing is you have throw the spear while in harm mode.

[PlushFox328]

2 hours ago, Del said:

I think so! The thing is you have throw the spear while in harm mode.

Thanks for answering then.